
Glass 
Book. 



1^ (\oG 



as. 



91^ 



FREE GOVERNMENT. 



ITS PRICIPLES AND ITS DEVELOPMENT. 



The Oration of the Hon. Ed\vard A. Sowles, at S-wanton 
on the Fourth of July, 1879 



Mk. Pkesidext,— We have assembled toge- 
ther on this memorable occasion amidst the 
roar of cannon, the beat of drums, the dis- 
play of national emblems, and numerous 
forms of demonstration, to celebrate our na- 
tional birthday. We have been accustomed 
to do so in one form and another since the 
_<i;reat achievements which made us a separate 
iuid independent nation, with all the attri- 
butes of government. We have rejoiced with 
each other over the triumphal inauguration 
and successful results of the principles under- 
lying the foundalionsof our Republic, namely, 
the great principles of civil or pohtical lib- 
erty. It must then be understood that we 
celebrate and commemorate an idea — a prin- 
ciple havmg perpetuity — while other nations 
commonly celebrate the birthday of their 
rulers — their regal heads. It is therefore emi- 
nently proper that we should refer to the ori- 
gin of this great principle, and briefly trace 
iis origin and developments until its success- 
ful culmination on American soil, and the ad- 
vancement and final triumph of American 
civilization, institutions and industries. 
These principles are much older and of 
slower growth in the world than we are ac- 
customed to realize. They had their birth in 
the classic il and congenial soil of Greece, 
about 400 years before the Christian era. and 
as the ally of Christianity travelled with it for 
a long time in a path so narrow they could 
scarcely go abreast. They have always been 
wedded together so that to a considerable ex- 
tent, each had become comparatively useless 



without the other. Greece was first divided 
into different States as our own country is 
now divided, and from which we have natu- 
rally copied. Hence the development of 
those Grecian States in the elements of gov- 
ernment, are full of interest and instruction. 
Nowhere on the earth's surface has so small 
a spot of earth made such large contributions 
to the settlement of important questions in 

The Science of Self-Government, 

Which is the off -spring of political liberty. 
]Nowhere else can be found the same variety. 
Those numerous little cities and States, if 
they have served no other purpose, have 
given a lasting example of the results of po- 
litical liberty as developed in the single ele- 
ment of self-government. They conceived 
and embodied all the ideas of States, towns 
and confederacies ; and that form of govern- 
ment lasted more than 500 years, amidst all 
the dissensions and animosities existing be- 
tween the different States, under one confed- 
eration, striving to work out the great prob- 
lem of political liberty under a self-govern- 
ment. These different States, and especially 
the Athenians and Spartans, in their respec- 
tive civilizations, excepting perhaps their 
religion, were in fact the antipodes of each 
other, like the Northern and Southern sec- 
tions of our own country. They were as 
hostile as South Carolina and Vermont, 
when, before our late rebellion, a member of 
Congress facetiously (though honestly, if he 
could,) proposed to dig a ditch around the 



Jn 



2 



THE PRINCIPLES OF FREE GOVERNMENT. 



latter and float her ofE into the Atlantic 
ocean, to get her out of the Union, on ac- 
count of her devotion to political liberty. 
The former afterwards tried the experiment 
of voluntary secession, and Vermont was 
among the first to teach that prodigal "how 
worse than serpent's tooth is an unfaithful 
child." Athenian and Spartan dissensions 
finally resulted in the complete dismember- 
ment of the Grecian Stales, and it finally de- 
generated into a monarchy. Not so with the 
turbulent and subjugated South Carolina, 
and the patriotic. Union-loving, Union-sav- 
ing and victorious Vermont. The Grecian 
republic, no less than our own, was not proof 
against corruption, and as a republic it could 
not stem the current of luxuiy and bribery, 
and it finally fell. This early germ of liberty 
soon took root in Rome. The storm of rage 
and indignation which burst upon this mon- 
archy sounded the death knell of Tarquin, 
and Rome became a republic in about the 
year 483 B. C, with a Republican form of 
government and a constitution. The ballot 
was introduced and there were two parties in 
existence, namely, the patricians and pleb- 
eians, with opposing views of the methods 
requisite in their respective judgments of 
administering the affairs of a republic. It 
was a republic in which the aristocratic fea- 
ture the most strongly predominated. Their 
prominent idea was to do everything for the 
city of Rome. Hence her constitution was 
not formed so as to favor her colonies, and 
they were kept in subjection. Slavery was 
abolished for a time, to all appearances, but 
when Caesar's bloody garment appeared, it 
flung Rome again into slavery. Corruption 
had crept into Rome as it had into Greece, 
and showed itself prominently, and with it 
the Roman republic, and its spirit and es- 
sence, expired, after an existence of about 
350 years. The next exhibition of 

The Spirit of Political Iiiberty 

Showed itself in the forests of Germany, 
during the fourth and fifth centuries. At 
the very bottom of the social state of 
Germany lay the system of force— 
the power of the individual — the high- 
est possible degree of political liberty. 
This legacy given to modern Europe has been 
of immense importance. The more ancient 
republics knew nothing of it. Greece and 
Rome favored the despot. He was the actor 
and the individual was the subject. But 
the German mind asserted and exercised the 
right of developing itself on its own account, 
and in its own way, and this right has had a 
most important influence upon modern repub- 
lics, la Germany, towns and cities began to 



organize, containing the elements of munici- 
pal corporations. From those institutions — 
from what grew out of them — and the rela- 
tions existing between them and from the 
void left by the recedina: of the Empire, grew* 
the political institutions of modern Europe 
and America. These forces first appeared in 
the free cities of Italy, Gaul and Germany, 
finally settling down in Holland and Belgium, 
in Switzerland, and in a modified form in 
"the borough system" of England, and the 
free untrammelled form of popular rule m 
America. In certain parts of Switzerland in 
the fifteenth century all distinctions of rank 
were abolished, recognizing no noble class, 
counting all as eaual politically. It was here 
the story of William Tell had its origin. 
The tyrant Gesslcr demanded his son as a 
ransom for uttering liberal sentiments, unless 
the father could shoot an apple from his son's 
head with his bow and arrow. It was here 
this same tyrant was shot by Tell, at the 
beautiful and historic Lake Lucerne. It 
was here the battle of Morat was fought 
which vies in history with Marathon, with 
Lexington and Petersburgh. It was here the 
young native of Freburg, who had been en- 
gaged in that battle, ran a distance of twelve 
miles and with such speed that on his arrival 
at the market-place, he dropped with fatigue 
and was only able to shout that the Swiss had 
been victorious over the allied forces of 
France and Germany, and immediately ex- 
pired. It was here a twig of lime tree which 
he carried in his hand was planted on the spot 
in commemoration of the event, and which 
afterwards grew to be a tree and was called 
"the tree of liberty." It was here, doubtless, 
from this real tree, that we get the figurative 
"tree of liberty" which is now extending its 
branches and benign influences over our 
mighty nation. It was here, in this land of 
watchmakers and beautiful and picturesque 
scenery, that liberty struggled, in one form 
and another, for about 500 years. Since the 
twelfth century France has several times at- 
tempted to be a republic with 

A Liberal Form of Goveriiiiicut. 

She has always, however, stood on the brink 
of a political convulsion. Turbulent and 
vacilating, she has ever failed in her efforts 
to maintain liberal principles. This has been 
in part the result of lier versatifity of charac- 
ter and in part the animosity, on the part of 
the leading nations of Europe, against the 
establishment ot a powerful republic on 
European soil, fearing that its success might 
be the nucleus of a Confederacy which ulti- 
mately might engulf all Europe in one grand 
republic. Laboring under these apprehen- 



THE PRINCIPLES OP FREE GOVERNMENT. 



3 



sions and fears, Napoleon Bonaparte con- 
vulsed all Europe with the celerity of his 
movements and success of his arms. He 
claimed to be the personification of the sov- 
ereignty of the people. "'Who," said he, 
"like me, has been elected by eighteen mil- 
lions of the people ?" "Who is like me, the 
representative of the people?" And with 
these words all Europe was in a state of trep- 
idation and fear. When after his downfall 
it became necessary to incarcerate him, noth- 
ing short of the Island of St. Helena— in mid- 
ocean— could safely hold his revolting spirit ; 
and after his death his remains were not for 
a long time, permitted to be brought to 
France, fearing that his ashes might be sown 
upon French soil, and lilce the dragon's teeth 
sown by Cadmus of old, bring forth crops of 
soldiers. 

"Those violent triumphs have violent ends, 
And in their triumph die, like lire and powder, 
Which, as they kiss, consume." 

Hence the efforts of other European nations 
to establish liberal prmciples and forms of 
government, so popular with the people and 
so acceptable to the rising young men of 
every country, have signally failed. Even 
the patriotic oratory of Kossuth was silenced 
by certain allied powers of Europe, lest it 
might triumph. Exiled from his native land, 
the United States dispatched a war vessel to 
bring him to our free shores to partake of our 
hospitality and to gam asylum under the 
aegis of our free institutions, with all our 
national and social privileges and immunities. 

"There's freedom at tliy gates, and rest 

For earth's down-trodden and oppressed ; 

A shelter lor the hunted head. 

And for the starved laborer toll andhread." 

But it has been well remarked by Guizot that 

Liberties are Nothiiiior Until They Have Become 
Kigbts, 

Positive rights formally recognized and con- 
secrated. Rigiits even when recognized are 
nothing so long as they are not intrenched 
with guarantees. And lastly, guarantees are 
nothing so Imig as they are not maintained 
by forces, independent of them in the limit of 
their rights. Convert liberties into rights, 
surround rights by guarantees, intrust the 
lieeping of these guarantees to forces capable 
of maintaining them, such are the successive 
steps in the progress towards a free govern- 
ment. This progress has been partially real- 
ized in England and fully carried out in 
America. In England it has been wrung fron 
the monarch. From the period of Magna 
Charta in 1215, when it was declared that 
"justice shall not be sold, refused or delayed 
to any one," down to the present time, in- 
cluding the period of the formation of the 



British constitution, there has been one suc- 
cession of advancement of liberal principles 
in the British government. England's consti- 
tution, like her common law, is unwritten 
and hence little known. She has embodied it 
in her liberal principles notwithstanding her 
monarchial forms. How else could she have 
reared such men as Pitt and Fox and John 
Bright among the first champions of liberty? 
The people there vote indirectly on every im- 
portant measure, though the Crown enjoys 
the royal perogative of vetoing any measure. 
The present crowned head is not George the 
Third. Every American might with propri- 
ety condemn his arbitrary course, and with 
equal propriety applaud the noble virtues, 
the generous impulses and the quiet reign of 
Victoria. Under the reign of the former 
Montreal was captured by Montgomery and 
Benedict Arnold by force of arms. Under 
the latter it was peaceably taken by capitula- 
tion on the Queen's birthday last May, by 
the 13th Brooklyn regiment, and accorded the 
right of clergy. It was a significant event to 
witness in full uniforms and full arms the 
mingling of "the blue and the red" in peaceful 
congratulations, engaging in the great inter- 
national fight of "Punch and Judy— especi- 
ally Punch." It was at least an omen of 
peace between the two leading nations of the 
world. National differences are not now 
settled by the arbitrament of arms, but by 
national arbitration. The swords have truly 
been turned into plowshares and spears into 
pruning-hooks. Our common soil and people 
need the conversion. 

"O God! that Dread should be so dear, 
And flesh and blood so cheap !" 

On the British isle and among the homes of 
the British laboring classes, the modern views 
of liberty somewhat prevail. Here is where 
Mr. Lincoln received moral support during 
the dark days of our rebellion, in the many 
addresses and letters of associations in Eng- 
land and her colonies, all expressing sympathy 
and bespeaking 

Tbe Final Triiimitli of Liberty. 
In America. The monarchial element, how- 
ever, showed itself in many forms inimical 
to the United States during the war. Still 
the rebel papers captured from the 
rebel archives at Richmond, when that 
so-called confederacy collapsed, show that 
England as a nation, would not recognize the 
Southern confederacy, though repeatedly and 
persistently urged to do so by the then Em- 
peror of France, whose subsequent career in 
battle, as on the throne, proved him to be a 
Napoleon in name and not in reality. The 
official correspondence shows that but one 
government on earth fully recognzed that so- 



THE PRINCIPLES OF FREE GOVERNMENT. 



called confederacy, as Alexander H. Stephens 
then said, "whose corner-stone rests upon the 
great truth that the negro is not equal to 
the white man — that slavery, subordination 
to the superior race, is his natural and normal 
condition.' It cannot, however be believed 
that such recognition was based upon any ex- 
pectancy that that base institution was to 
have continuance or perpetuity, because many 
zealous friends of that government acted a 
conspicuous part in the final eradication, bj^ 
force of arms, of that dark stain on American 
character, shoulder to shoulder with our own 
brave and patriotic countrymen in a thousand 
hard fought battles. They too stood upon 
the watch tower of our republic when liberty 
and freedom were on trial, in the great un- 
certain tribunal of war, and saw the star of 
victory and peace rise with all its effulgence, 
and stand over the very spot where liberty 
in America was born. But political liberty, 
after it had struggled in the old world for 
twenty-two hundred years sought America. 
As the gentle zephyrs waft the seeds of plants 
and flowers from their germinating cells upon 
new fields and congenial soil, so did the 
breezes of heaven, in their ever mysterious 
missions, transport the germs of liberty upon 
the wings of the wind to our own soil, which 
afterwards became ripe for the harvest. 
While George Grenville was minister of Eng- 
land in 1765, the stamp act was passed which 
threw the North American colonies into a 
blaze, and was the first in a series of acts 
■whicii in their entirely make up the American 
revolution, and which our Declaration of In- 
dependence so fully and truthfully recited. 
In that same year the first indication ap- 
peared of tliat mental malady which clouded 
King George the Third's latter days. He 
ruled as well as reigned, and the attacks on 
American liberty were his acts, the guilt of 
the minister consisting in his being the tool, 
against his own convictions, of a master who 
•was not always in possession of his reason. 
Nevertheless he was imperial, and the war 
was waged for seven long and eventful years. 
Every student of American history well un- 
derstands its details. It is indelibly written 
upon the hearts and minds of our countr}^- 
inen. From Lexington to Yorktown victory 
seemed to float upon nearly every breeze. 
It was 

"As brilliant a tide 
As ever bore freedom aloft on Its wave." 

It Brought Forth a W'ashiiigtoii 

And an Arnold — the one glorious in his noble 
deeds andpatriotic devotion to the end ; the 
other inglorious and ignominious in his be- 
trayal of his country, notwithstanding his ex- 
pedition into Canada and liis patriotic ex- 



ploits and battles on Lake Champlain. It 
brought forth a Warren and a Burgoyne — the 
one giving up his life for his country, and the 
other surrendering his sword to his valiant 
victor as the better part of valor. It brought 
forth a Stark and an Allen — tiie one the pride 
of Mollie and the defender of Bennington, 
and the other the hero of Ticonderoga, de- 
riving his commission from high sources. It 
finally brought forth a nation — God's saving 
gift to a distracted and imperilled people. It 
was his creative fiat over a weltering chaos : 
"Let a nation be born in a day." But an in- 
fant nation, like an infant child, had all to 
learn. It had a constitution to build up — na- 
tional and sectional interests to guard and 
ambitious men to propitiate. We can hardly 
understand the dangers of that navigation. 
For several years the colonies remained a con- 
federacy balancing between hopes deferred 
and expectations not realized. Tiiere were 
those wlio wanted a limited monarchy — still 
clinging to their mother's apron strings. 
Prominent among them was the great Alex- 
ander Hamilton. But the majority headed 
by Washington and Franklin advocated a 
clear departure from the mother country and 
the establishment of agovernment based upon 
the Grecian ideas of Slates and the German 
system of force— the power of the individual, 
and the aggregate of individuals, to govern 
themselves—and established upon the immu- 
tal>le principles "that all men arc created 
equal — that they arc endowed by their Crea- 
tor with certain inalienable rights — that 
among these are life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness." These had to be "entrenciied 
by guarantees" as contained in the written 
constitution, which, in the language of .lohn 
Adams, "was extorted from the grinding ne- 
cessities of a reluctant people." But .the ship 
was finally launched uuon its voyage of state. 
It has been beset by dangers on 
every hand in its perilous but prosperous 
voyage. The war of 1812 involving 
the "issues of free trade and sailors' 
rights came upon the countiy in its infancy.Thc 
waters in yonder lake, the very spot on which 
we now celebrate, is surrounded by incidents 
of that struggle. The original "Pinafore" 
rounded up in Plattsburgh bay iaden with its 
crew to visit "their sisters and their cousins 
and their aunts." A detachment came into 
yonder beautiful bay, crossed the river above 
the bridge on a raft, burned the barracks near 
where we now stand, and fled. This was 
then the home of the brave Captain Goodrich, 
who fell at Lundy's Lane. This has ever been 
the home of his descendants, and among them 
the gallant Colonel Barney, who fell in the 
same righteous cause. Several disastrous re- 



THE PRINCIPLES OF FREE GOVERNMENT. 



versies and the serious inroads of Napoleon 
towards En£rlish soil, brought the war to a 
close. A period of almost unbroken peace 
and prosperity continued until the great re- 
bellion, when 

Tlie Pi-inciples of Political Tiiberty 

And our institutions and government were 
severely put to test by the greatest intestine 
war the world has ever witnessed. It was 
liberty attempting '"to smother itself under 
the folds of its own garments." The details 
of it are written upon every page of our mod- 
ern history. The ravages of it are notably 
visible in a large territory of our country, and 
in every village of our laud, North and [South, 
in the naaimed and crippled soldiers. It is as 
fresh as the sods that mark the graves of its 
thousands of victims. It is evidenced by the 
depleted ranks of the family circle in every 
part of this country. They sleep the patriot's 
sleep. 

" On Fame's eternal camping ground 

Their silent tents are spread, 
And Glory guards with silent round 

The bivouac of the dead." 

War's deadly blasts were not aimed at those 
heroep, but at the great principles they repre- 
sented. But political liberty had been antag- 
onized from the organization of the govern- 
ment by the prevalence of human slavery re- 
cognized by law. This was the great dis- 
turbing element in the peaceful adjustment 
and successful worki-ngs of all the machmerj^ 
of our government. Washington saw it, and 
located the city bearing his name on the North 
side of the Potomac, that it might not be easy 
of access from the South in the event of se- 
cession, and as a bond of union hallowed a 
spot on the other side of the Potomac with 
his remains. He well understood that slavery 
did not mean liberty. His associates and 
descendants well knew it. The great Charles 
Sumner saw that liberty and freedom, as ap- 
plied to the then existing state of slavery, 
were misnomers. He saw at the beginning of 
his public career that these greatest essentials 
to the existence of a great republic were 
crushed to earth by an inglorious tyrant, 
stalking through our land with giant strides 
— threatening our national existence and our 
national honor. Nay, when, as it were, a 
Herod was pursuing the children of liberty 
and freedom to capture and destroy them, as 
on the plains of Bethlehem, he grappled with 
the giant. His weapons were truth, oratory 
and patriotism. These he could handle with 
skill and effect. He delivered several speeches 
on the subject, culminating in his great 
speech on the "Barbarism of Slavery," which 
brought down on his head the enemy's invec- 
tives and assailant's blows, while sitting in 



his seat in the Senate of his country. Those 
blows were not aimed at him alone as a man, 
but at the sentiments he expressed and the 
great State and people he represented. It was 
a blow at liberty and free speech and freedom, 
and those great attributes of a free govern- 
ment went weeping, like Rachel, In our 
streets. But Mr. Sumner saw these great 
principles triumph, through the ordeal of re 
belliou and "the flery furnace of affliction." 
As life was gradually stealing away, he said 
to his colleague : "If my works were com- 
pleted and my civil rights bill passed, no 
visitor could enter the door that would be 
more welcome than deatb." It soon came, 
and reared a monument for him that the ages 
will not crumble. When, afterwards, as the 
star of peace was about to shine upon 

A Free ami Eiiiaiiripated People, 

Liberty was again wounded in the persons of 
the martyr President and his prime Cabinet 
officer. The assassins had no particular en- 
mity towards Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, 
but it was the great principles of civil liberty, 
of which they were the leading exponents, 
that were attempted to be stricken down. 
They had by the great emancipation proclam- 
ation, as the simple mouth-pieces of over 
thirty millions of people, proclaimed emanci- 
pation to over four millions of slaves, and es- 
tablished political liberty on American soil 
forever. Slavery had sounded the tocsm of 
war immediately on Mr. Lincoln's election, 
and sedulously followed his inauguration and 
first term of service. Who witnessed his tri- 
umphal career from his first public appear- 
ance to his melancholy assassination, witiiout 
according to him the nighest attributes as a 
hero, a benefactor and a statesman ! Who 
that read of that funeral cortege, or accom- 
panied it from Washington to his beloved 
Western home, with a nation in tears and the 
luminary of day almost eclipsed in clouds of 
mourning, can doubt the great principles he 
represented, and the prominent place he and 
those principles had in the hearts and affec- 
tions of his country? Washington was the 
father of his country, but Lincoln was its 
saviour. Washington gave it birth, but Lin- 
coln died a martyr that it might live. Mr. 
Seward had piloted the great ship of state 
through the fiercest storms and tempests that 
ever beset it. On one occasion during this 
voyage it was my fortune to visit him in his 
pilot-house, feeble, careworn and scarred in 
the country's service. An unexpected storm 
had been prevailing from the North simul- 
taneously with the tempest that was raging 
from the South. The staunch old ship was 
heaving and groaning under the adverse in- 



THE PRINCIPLES OF FREE GOVERNMENT. 



fluences of counter winds. Its machinery was 
working admirably. Its sails were weather- 
ing the storms. On the one side could be 
seen, at the mast-head, the "stars and bars" 
and the black flag of piracy and rebellion sail 
ing towards her. On the other side the then 
unfriendly Union Jack intermingled with 
the "star and bars," was just heaving in 
sight ; and in the midst of them proudly 
sailed our own ship of State, with the valiant 
Seward at the wheel, and at the mast head 
were unfurled the eloquent ''Stars and 
Stripes," bidding defiance to al' enemies and 
nobly protecting "the land of the free and 
the home of the brave." On Madison square, 
m the metropolis of the nation, cast in bronze, 
sits m his favorite attitude a life-like statue of 
the great emancipator, statesman and diplo- 
matist, ready to welcome the generations un- 
born and tell them how he, too, bled that his 
country and its liberal principles might live. 

What Our Country Now Needs 

Is more such patriots and patriotism and less 
traitors. We need more statesmen and 
fewer states rights men. We want freer bal- 
lots and ballotting, and fewer bullets and 
bludgeons. We should raise more hams and 
fewer Hamburgs. We should cultivate more 
hemp and less cotton. We should possess 
more national and individual integrity and fru- 
gality and less extavagance and bankruptcy. 
We should inspire greater private and public 
confidence ana less betrayals of trust and 
breaches of honor. We should have men of 
principle for our principal men. We should 
have less legislation and President-making 
and more labor and recuperation. We should 
improve the agricultural, the commercial and 
the industrial interests of the country. The 
field is a noble one— a broad expanse of coun- 
try skirting either ocean, with its beautiful 
shores and landscapes welded together by 
bands of iron and with living arteries cours- 
ing through every considerable section bear- 
ing upon them the white-winged commere of 
the world or agitated by the busy and inces- 
sant paddle wheel keeping company with the 
revolving hours, and surrounding the whole 
continent with one continuous stream of the 
coa">mercial air of America. The great 
agency of water is harnessed to propel the 
millions of spindles and roll the ponderous 
wheels of extensive manufacturing establish- 
ments ; but only to a limited extent in com- 
parison to the unlimited capacity of the 
country to perform. The still greater agency 
of steam is moving the millions of wheels in 
every conceivable form and purpose, to re- 
lieve human labor, and is constantly hurling 
through the country the irrepressible locomo- 



tive, freighted with thousands of human be- 
ings and millions of freight, at a speed that 
almost annihilates space and distance. The 
telegraph and telephone are constantly send- 
ing "winged words "' with lightning speed to 
every part of the world, with a rapidity that 
science itself can hardly reconcile with truth 
and reality. Genius is exhibiting itself in 
every conceivable form of invention, and is 
performing wonders in relieving the drudg- 
eiy of the world of all its odious forms. We 
see cities spring up as if by magic and treat 
them as commonplace affairs. We look at 
Niagara and think it is not so big a fall as it 
might be. We view the ereat national parks 
of the Yellowstone and Yosemite valleys, 
with their beautiful forests, mountains, lakes 
and waterfalls, ^ — with their wonderful gey- 
sers — and treat them as a matter of 
course. Wc do not realize that we live in 
a country presided over by " the 
genius of liberty" and a scenic beautv 
which is a joy forever. We do not 
consider that millions of acres of land are still 
unoccupied, which could alone pay our na- 
tional debt and furnish cereals and support 
for a whole nation. Indeed we have over 
three millions of square miles of territory 
equal to that of nearly all Europe — studded 
with school houses, bristling with church 
spires and glittering with temples of justice 
— all speaking the language of political libeny- 
and political equality before the law as con- 
tained in the amendded constitution, and 
which can never be disturbed as long as free 
schools, religious toleration and a pure ballot 
box are permitted to rule the land, enact our 
laws and dispense unpurchased justice. What, 
then,will be the future of this country? If we 
could but lift the veil that hides the future 
from us ; if w^e could but open the pages of 
the living future and read them as we do 
the dead past, it would portray to us in 
no imaginary phase within a half of a 
century, a country with a doubled and tripled 
population, a commerce rivalling that of any 
other nation, a manufacturing industry far 
superior to any in the world, a navy proudly 
sailing upon every sea, a power commanding 
the respect and admiration of the family of 
nations, wealth rivalling, if not surpassing 
that of any nation on the globe, an intelli- 
gence commensurate with the rapid growth 
and thorough advancement of our free schools 
and unrivalled colleges, and a morality elevat- 
ing man to respect the dignity and nobility of 
labor, and exalting woman to the noble and 
patriotic sphere which she was designed to 
occupy as the allies of the lords of creation 
This is 



THE PRINCIPLES OF FREE GOVERNMENT. 



The Miti8ion and the Destiny of the Great 
Republic 

Of which you are all constituent members 
and exercise a potent influence in the enact- 
ment of its laws and the administration of its 
affairs. The dead patriots and the venerable 
men of to-day have pi-eserved it, the middle- 
aged men have fought, bled and died for it, 
tile young men now have it confided to their 
fostering care and protection and their and 
your children and childrens' children 
will enjoy the rich heritage handed 
down to them by the fathers— purchased 
by their ancestral blood — preserved by their 
sacrifice and heroic deeds — bequeathed to them 
as the richest legacy ever iriven to any en- 
lightened people. Let us then avoid the evils 
and corruptions that have destroyed other re- 
publics, and at times tarnished our rulers — 
that have threatened to undermine the pil- 
lars of our society and weaken our political 
edifice — that are now exposing our rights and 
liberties, of which we so proudly boast, to 
the prey of the spoiler. Let us preserve in 
their integrity and purity these great princi- 



ples of political liberty that have destroyed 
kingdoms and empires and built up republics 
on their ruins— that have smitten down sin 
and corruption and evangelized and Chris- 
tianized the world — that has extended its 
beneficient oflices to the oppressed and down- 
trodden of all nations, and furnished them a 
safe asj'Jum of retreat — that has taken eman- 
cipation and reconstruction upon its wings, 
and brtrne them aloft through perilous voy- 
ages and landed them safely and securely on 
the shores of a free country with our forty-- 
five millions of prosperous people. Let us 
then yearly commemorate our national birth- 
day. Let us constantly fan the flames of 
patriotism that are ever burning around the 
altars of our countr\\ Let us rear to the 
memory of those who have fallen in its de- 
fence and preservation, those marble fingered 
monuments pointing towards heaven in com- 
memoration of their brillianfc and lasting 
achievements, and above all : 
" Let us be Arm and united 

One country— one flag for us all. 
And our strength will be freedom. 

Divided we eacU of us fall." 



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